The Opium Smuggler of the City of Kingston
A baggage master is caught red-handed smuggling forty-five pounds of opium, but the customs inspector he tried to bribe was playing a double game.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A trunk containing forty-five pounds of opium was seized last night on the steamer City of Kingston, and a man named C. H. Earle, the ship's baggage master, was arrested and charged with smuggling. Earle had attempted to bribe customs officers for permission to bring the opium over the border, hidden in a false bottom of a trunk. Unknown to Earle, the customs inspector he approached was setting a trap; he informed another officer who conducted the arrest. Earle was held incommunicado, denied access to attorneys or reporters, pending his arraignment before United States Commissioner Swan. In a separate incident, Inspector J. S. Latimer seized seven and a half pounds of opium on the City of Topeka, leading to the arrest of a Chinese baker named Ah Sam.
“Over on this side the inspector, who had consented to allow the opium to be brought into the country, quietly informed another officer who made the arrest and seizure.”
This arrest highlights the high-stakes world of maritime smuggling in the 1890s and the intense policing of the border. It serves as a reminder of how the 'War on Drugs' began long before the 20th century, often entangled with the racialized surveillance of Asian communities in the Pacific Northwest.
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